


Five Reasons Lex Luthor Became a Criminal

by Bagheera



Category: Smallville
Genre: 5 Things, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera/pseuds/Bagheera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Reasons Lex Luthor Became a Criminal

1.

It's a matter of definition.

In Greek, Lex's name means, "Protector of Man" but in Latin, it means, "Law."

Law is a science, it operates on rules, definitions and paradigms. Its structure is logical, even if its content isn't. Law isn't about fairness or justice. It's about making things work, as smoothly as possible. But law is also an art. It's subject to change, historical and social, it's a matter of interpretation – authorial intent and reader reception. Law doesn't derive from observation and experiments. Law requires no proof, only precedents and traditions. First and foremost, though, law is a profession, and the nature of this profession is to take the given rules, the parameters of the science, and twist them to mean what you need them to mean.

A very long time ago, Lex wanted to be a lawyer. It was Duncan's idea, but law appealed to Lex for many reasons. It seemed inherently heroic to him, to be able to bring justice not through power, but through skill and resilience. A lawyer could use his intelligence as weapon and shield.

It was one of the few dreams Lionel never discouraged. Now Lex knows that Lionel had good reason: he knew Lex was too much of an idealist not to become disillusioned with law and too much of a pragmatist not to use the knowledge he had gained in the process.

2.

It's a matter of nurture.

Lionel never talked about ethics other than work ethics, but it wasn't hard for Lex to discern that Lionel had only one philosophy concerning crime: don't get caught.

Lillian never talked about ethics either, at least not in any definite way. When Lex was six, she told him to approach a policeman if he ever got lost. She told him that there were people out there who weren't good people, people who wanted to harm him, and that sometimes you couldn't tell apart the good and the bad people, so it was best not to talk to strangers. Go to a policeman, she said, or a woman with children. They'll help you.

She did advise him to go with his heart, though. "You'll know what's wrong and what's right."

3.

It's a matter of nature.

Lex is smart enough to know that a lot of laws don't always make sense. He's smart enough to justify himself with irrefutable logic. He's smart enough to know at any given point in his criminal career at least three separate philosophers who would agree with his choices.

He's courageous enough to break laws if he's justified. He's courageous enough to face possible condemnation.

And he is contrary by nature.

4.

It's a matter of circumstance.

There's bending the rules, and there's breaking them. The crimes Lex regrets the most are those that he wasn't in control of, the ones that he didn't think through and later couldn't justify.

Killing Duncan was the first. There were others. But none of them make him a criminal. They make him a bad, tainted person, someone with blood on his hands that will never wash off.

What really makes him a criminal, bit by bit, is circumstance. Necessity. The crimes he committed fully knowing that they were crimes, and sure that they were unavoidable.

The day he started investigating Clark. The moment he pointed the gun at Nixon. A dangerous combination of situational ethics and utilitarianism, and soon there isn't anything left that Lex has done and cannot fully regret.

5.

It's a matter of time.

Over the years, exceptions become habits. Faces that have haunted his dreams become featureless masses, a deep-seated discomfort always at his back, something that is here to stay. You can become habituated to anything. Pain, fear, guilt. The more there is of it and the longer it lasts, the less it matters.

And once it stops hurting, there's a certain freedom in playing by your own rules and your own rules only. A certain vicious joy in being lonely and hated and on the top, and most of all, in not failing all the time.

Lex has a role, and a counterpart worthy of him, and he's playing a game that works for him.

On some days, under the blue sky, on the rooftops and over the city, Lex feels laughter rising in him, wild and free, when once more, he has proven that he is the very best at what he does.


End file.
